Page 8 of The Last Valkyrie (Vikingrune Academy #4)

Chapter 8

Arne

WE RUSHED TO THE WEST , toward the edge of the Niflbog in the distance on the far end of the Isle. The sounds of battle were fierce in the plains, yet the fog was too murky and thick to see through until we got closer.

All the death, the destruction, the forest ablaze, the cries and hideous sounds coming from the draug as they emerged from the ground and the trees . . . it was too much to take. The terror and trauma of this night was getting close to what I’d felt watching Frida die in front of me.

I wasn’t a courageous man. No, I wasn’t like Sven or Grim, Magnus or Corym. I tended to stay to the shadows, which was what made me such an effective spy. When I had first met Ravinica on the Gray Wraith and threatened Ulf Torfen with incredible pain if he touched her, it had been the first time in my life I’d done such a thing.

Even outside the fields of battle, or the training grounds at Gharvold Hall and Tyr Meadow, I played a more elusive role. Where others dominated, I stayed in the back and allowed others to dominate me. I preferred it that way, as Ravinica and her other mates knew from our adventures beneath the sheets.

You could learn a lot acting sneakily submissive.

They may have seen me as a coward. I saw myself as an opportunist who lacked confidence. A cockroach who managed to stay alive while everyone around me died. I’d lost parents, a sister, and so had Sven now. Ravinica’s arrogant younger brother was well on the way too if he didn’t watch his step around her. Magnus and the others would have no qualms about gutting him like a fish.

Yet I had stayed alive through it all. The least likely candidate—a man born to magicless humans, a leper in truth, who had gotten lucky with genetics and managed to sprout up a bit of elemental magic when it was needed most. When it could provide an opportunity for my family to make something of ourselves.

Frida had gotten herself killed trying to grasp the same power. It was a source of guilt and shame I’d never forgive, knowing the runeshaping blood in my veins had gone to the wrong child. It should have been you here, Frida, fighting for the survival of our people. Not me.

That being said, with what I knew about myself, it was a wonder I was still alive. The goosebumps were fierce on my skin. The sweat of fear soaked through my clothes as I charged headlong into unknown danger.

It was Ravinica, my little fox, who led me onward. Only she would I follow. She imbued me with the confidence and swagger her other mates naturally possessed. She filled me with such vigor and angst, I hardly recognized myself anymore.

As we tore into the thick mist in Gothi Sigmund’s hoofprints, the fog of doubt in my head cleared. I honed on the battle ahead, knowing the night was far from over.

I’d forgone my bow for a sword and shield, like the other cadets surrounding me. Even with the deaths in Delaveer Forest, we numbered a few hundred. Pride filled me as I squared up shoulder-to-shoulder with men and women I hardly recognized. Comrades.

I had found my people in this bloody, haunted battle.

Ravinica and the other mates shored up vacant sections of the shield wall to make it fierce and formidable. We trudged into the fog ready for whatever awaited us.

The chorus of battle was close, steel jarring and screams splitting the night. A waft of displaced fog caught my attention and my eyes swiveled—

As a draug tore through the cloud, all bones and unhinged jaw.

Screaming, I hacked into the monster before it could close in. When my sword struck its shoulder, a spear from a man behind me leveled over me and plunged into its face, pushing the thing to the ground.

More undead threw themselves at our shield wall and were struck down in similar, efficient fashion. Our fighting force had regrouped. I heard the hums of splitting air as mages Shaped the sky and cast spells into the night.

The fog began to dissipate, and within minutes I noted its cause—Hersir Gudleif Selken, the runeshaping teacher, drawing on a ring of golden runes around her to send the fog billowing into the sky above us, out of the battlefield.

The field became clearer, crisper, with Gudleif nearby. The draug fought scared initiates—poor first-year students who were greeted with the macabre truth of their enemies. Their ranks were out of alignment. Gudleif was trying to rally the troops, with Hersir Thorvi Kardeen in another section of the field far off, trying to do the same with that wing.

The two women were failing because their troop had not been trained properly. They hadn’t had the time before the jotnar arrived at the Telvos Mountains.

My boots sank into sloppy ground, mud and bog-water spilling over my shoes. I made a face, knowing we were at the edge of the Niflbog. The sounds of suctioning boots joined the symphony of steel, magic, and shouting. It was pandemonium once more, thrusting us into Hel as we fought for our lives and the lives of the man or woman closest to us.

I lost sight of Ravinica and my mates, the section of my shield wall pushed forward by others behind me. Even with her out of sight, I knew she was nearby, and it filled me with enough valor to continue fighting on.

Then I got a bit ahead of myself. I made the cardinal sin of breaking from the shield wall to move three steps ahead to get the nearest draug before it could reach us, rather than allowing the enemy to come to us .

“Back!” one of the cadets yelled. I ignored him, filled with battle-lust.

My sword sang and I moved in a rhythm similar to how I fought against the Dokkalfar, my training taking over. When I wanted, I could be a vicious fighter—I just didn’t know how to summon the ability on the spot like Rav’s other mates.

Now, I did.

I cut into a draug, blasted its face with a sheet of ice to confuse it, and moved onto another—spinning, ducking under its claws, ramming my blade into its gut and running a jagged line up its stomach until its insides spilled outside.

Before the living dead creature could hit me, I was already moving on, leaving the shield wall behind me to finish him, onto the next—

Where two men had blades locked together in an X, gritting their teeth at one another.

My brow furrowed as I tried to locate the enemy combatant. For the life of me, neither of the men looked undead. They were both living humans . . . fighting each other.

“W-What?” I stammered.

The man on the right shoved a foot into the soldier on the left’s stomach, sending him back. I recognized the dragon-on-shield emblem of Vikingrune Academy on the shoulder pad of the left man, who stumbled to get his footing in the mucky swamp.

My eyes snapped right, and for a moment my orbs locked with the other human’s.

It was a man I recognized—vaguely, but certainly.

A Leper Who Leapt!

My jaw dropped, my sword nearly fell from my hand.

“Arne, watch out!” came a cry from behind.

Spinning, I ducked just in time to avoid a draug careening in from the swamp, trying to clamp its diseased jaws on my neck.

I dropped to my knees, crying out, losing my sword in the process.

The draug came again, and I lifted my shield with both hands. Its weight bore down on me and I couldn’t move—could only defend myself with the damn shield because trying to Shape any runes would only get my throat torn out.

Peeking over the rim, I saw the Leper over his shoulder, a mix of emotions in his eyes. Confusion, anger . . . guilt.

Roaring, I tried to put all my strength into the shield to shove the draug off me.

The Leper Who Leapt rebel was simply watching it happen, watching me struggle, doing nothing. It took the other Vikingruner hacking into the draug’s backside to get its attention. He realized his mistake too late—

The undead monster turned, sprawling off me, and lunged at the human.

They both went down in a spiral of hisses and screams.

I scrambled on my hands and knees to get my sword, rising to my feet—

And blood sprayed across the swamp as the draug bit into the initiate’s throat. I could only see the man’s twitching legs from the way the draug straddled him.

I stared aghast, unable to move. Frozen like my own ice had stolen my nerves and dignity.

The shield wall emerged from the darkness, ripping into the draug and taking it down with no less than five swords and spears smashing into it, before Gudleif Selken torched the thing and made it hiss in agony and ash.

The cadet underneath was dead.

I spun to castigate the Leper, to demand why he hadn’t acted. “Why were you fighting a—”

He was gone. I caught a hint of the suctioning sound of boots in the distance. He’d vanished into the darkness.

“. . . human?” I finished with a croak.

Why in all the realms would the Lepers be fighting Vikingruners at a time like this?!

The blood-lust that had ignited my veins now felt sour in my stomach. I took the thought one step further and realized the truth of it.

. . . Because the Lepers still see the academy as the enemy. Which means they see the others as the allies. The dark elves, the draug, the jotnar. And it’s all because of Frida. She led them down that path!

Tears burned in my eyes as the fight raged on around me. Ravinica and the others got to me, with my little fox yelling, “Arne? Arne! Can you hear me? Are you okay?!”

I looked blankly at her, shell-shocked. I pointed in the distance toward the Leper. I couldn’t explain what I’d just seen. Then my eyes moved northward, up, deeper into the plains where the moon shone brightest.

A man stood atop a high hill, surveying the battle playing out in the Niflbog. He was another man I recognized from his tall stature, his midnight skin, his tuft of long silver hair blowing in the high winds behind him, with the rest of his mane piled atop his head.

The Dokkalfar leader from Elayina’s cave.

The man who killed my sister . . . but not before tainting her mind and the minds of the rebellious group I once called family.